Ethical challenges in media coverage of the Zimbabwe crisisJacob Enoh-Eben This paper examines some ethical challenges manifested in the media coverage of the Zimbabwe land crisis since it escalated in 2002. The crisis has mainly been around issues of land; with seizure of land from dominating white-minority farmers, for redistribution amongst the black-majority population. Beyond the re-settlement policy, a sky-rocketing inflation, a deteriorating economy, gross human rights violations, poor governance and the dictatorial tendencies of 27-year serving President Robert Mugabe have only help to weaken the country. Within this context, the media are muscled, constrained and operated under draconian press laws. Yet, domestic and international media remain the battle ground for conflicting parties, both within and beyond the national frontiers. A brief recollection of Zimbabwe’s political history, its recent socio-political context and stakeholders as well as the evolution and media landscape put the ethical challenges in context.

When journalists
under everyday conditions are seen to have strong sentiments for family,
friends, or community, they are often taken off the story that involves them.
When their sentiments for country are seen as strong in wartime, they are
rarely removed from the story; rather, the expectation, at least in some
quarters, is that they will simply change how they conduct themselves as
journalists (Allan and Zelizer
2004: 4).

Hardly are the media ever faced with so many
daunting ethical challenges than in times of conflict.

Ethical considerations
are significantly negotiated during situations of conflict. Within a continuum,
wherein liberal democracy flanks one end and a dictatorship the other, ethical
pitfalls deepen as you progress to the latter. Coverage of major conflicts and
wars at the highest international levels, notably the World Wars, the Persian
Gulf Warn and most recently the war on terror are perfect examples. This is
true as well with the proliferation of intrastate conflicts in the likes Chechnya, Burma/Mynmar, the Rwandan Genocide and the Zimbabwe Land crisis.

Background and Context

Southern Rhodesia got
its independence in 1980, and became known as Zimbabwe. In a pre-independence
agreement (famously called, the Lancaster House Agreement) in 1979 at Lancaster, in the UK, the parties almost failed to reach an agreement over the land issue.
The policy of willing sellers and willing buyers of land was reached, with the
white minority were guaranteed 20% seats in parliament.

The issue of land has remained
a major issue that is not only being perceived with racial lenses but seen as a
conspiracy of the West to maintain influence in Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, the
government of President Mugabe is using the land, race and supposed “Western
conspiracy” as trump cards to maintain the status quo, especially after the
country overwhelmingly voted against a proposed new constitution in 2000. Even
after the formation of the opposition political party, Movement for Democratic
Change by Morgan Tsvangirai, it was still perceived as opposing the government
in favour of Western powers.

Two significant, recent
turning points on the land issue were in 2002 and 2005. Following a period of
squatting by the 1970 war veterans on white-owned farmland, in August 2002, the
Zimbabwean government ordered all the whites out of those lands without
compensation. The situation was compounded in 2005 when the Operation
Murambatsvina, “Clean the Filth”, where over 700,000 according to UN
statistics, were driven out of theirs when slums and shantytowns in Harare were demolished by the government. In 2002 Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations. That same year, Mugabe won the 2002 Presidential elections that was
characterised by massive rigging. These sparked off criticisms and animosity by
the media, opposition party, Churches and the international community against
Mugabe. He was accused of perpetrating gross human rights violations.

The relationship between Zimbabwean
government and the west has significantly soared and continue to deteriorate.
Analysts say the seizure from experienced commercial farmers to the amateur
ordinary black farmers is a major cause of the country’s present economic
decline. Unemployment, poverty and inflation rates have reached unimaginable
peaks. Inflation, according to the International Crisis Group September 2007
report on Zimbabwe, “is
between 7,600 per cent (government figures) and 13,000 per cent (independent
estimates).” This is the
highest in the world. Meanwhile, human rights
violation increases, with journalists, civil society activists, opposition
party leaders and other anti-Mugabe sympathizers being the targets.

Muzzling the Media, a Challenge
to Professional Ethics

Media being a reflection of
society remains a very strong maxim pitting the relationship between the two,
media and society. This maxim is a truism in Zimbabwe where the media landscape
mirrors, but also influences and contributes to shaping the socio-political
context. Operating in such quasi-totalitarian regime poses immense challenges
to the ethics of journalism and media practice. Pre-independence Zimbabwe was characterized by a repressive political regime that tightly restricted freedom
of association, expression and speech.

The tense political
environment gave rise to a rebellion championed by “Freedom Fighters”, in the
likes of Joshua Nkomo, Muzorewa and Robert Mugabe. Even after
independence in 1980 much did not change in this respect. With Robert Mugabe as
Prime Minister and Canaan Banana as President, the grip over the freedom of the
media, association and expression of opinion still remained tight. However,
during the 90s there was a semblance of socio-political freedom that paved the
way for the emergence of civil society organizations, the private press and
opposition political parties.

Since 2000 the situation
started changing significantly. Within the last seven years, three major
regulations have been introduced, which have enormously contributed to shaping
the media landscape in Zimbabwe. These are: the Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA); the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and
the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA). The Access to Information and Protection
of Privacy Act (AIPPA) was passed in 2002. Its main provision gives the
government excessive powers to control the media, requiring the registration of
journalists and media houses, while prohibiting the abuse of free expression.
According to the Act, “the
right of access may be exercised by any citizen or resident (but not an
unregistered media agency or foreign government) to records held by a public
body. Under the rules, the body must respond to a request in thirty days.”

However, there are a number
of exceptions to the access to information, including information on cabinet
documents, national security, intergovernmental relations, privacy, etc. The
Act also created a Media and
Information Commission whose role has mainly been the repression of freedom of
expression. In January 2005, the AIPPA was amended to allow for the
imprisonment of journalists for up to two years if they had not registered with
the Commission. This Act was
interpreted as highly controversial and strongly opposed by many governmental
and non-governmental bodies both with Zimbabwe and abroad.

The Broadcasting Services
Act (BSA) and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) were both enacted in 2001
and 2002 respectively. The BSA was reported to have been introduced to stifle
any private initiatives around broadcasting, since the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holding (ZBH) is the only broadcaster
permitted to carry out diffusion services in the country. It largely remains a
propaganda tool for the ruling ZANU-PF.

The BSA also prohibits
any foreigner and Zimbabwean living abroad from being involved in any
broadcasting activities. While no foreigner is supposed to own any shares in
either radio or television, no individual Zimbabwean can own beyond ten percent
of shares. Also, at least 75% of all local electronic media content must be
locally generated.

Meanwhile, the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) make it an offence to publish or communicate
false statements prejudicial to the state. The media landscape became even
rougher and more slippery when the Criminal (Codification and Reform) Act was
enacted in June 2005. Within the framework of the latter, journalists could
serve a jail term of up to 20 years for publishing certain stories. Following a
myriad of criticisms from many international organisations, the government
planned to remove the offending articles in these laws, but that is still to
have happened.

These laws are clearly
tools in the hands of the politicians, to have control over the process and
product. It has been effective, amongst others, in creating two camps. On one
hand, the government and pro-Mugabe camp believe that these laws have helped
put the media and their cohorts in order. They hold that the private media and
civil society started an anti-Mugabe campaign only after the controversial land
redistribution policy. That they are being used by powerful external forces,
especially the West to effect “regime change” in Zimbabwe. On the other hand,
the opposition political party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the private
media and civil society organizations accuse the government of clamping down on
the private media, stifling freedom of expression and opinion, whilst using
public or state-own media to churn out propaganda to maintain its grip on
power.

These laws have
significantly impacted critical and independent media in Zimbabwe. Journalists and other media practitioners have suffered retribution, arrests and physical
abuse for their professionalism. Some have lost their jobs whilst others have
simply fled the country. Two of seven media houses are reported to have
disappeared in between. According to the Media Institute of Southern Africa
(MISA), “the harsh legislative environment which saw the closure of the
Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday in September 2003, the Tribune in June
2004 and the Weekly Times in February 2004 barely two months after its launch,
adds to the uncertainty in investing in the media industry.”

Today, surviving private
print media include the Financial Gazette, The Independent, The Standard and
The Mirror. Meanwhile, those operated by the government include The
Chronicle, The Herald, The Sunday Mail, The Sunday News, The Manica Post and
the Kwayedza. Almost all of these are operated by the Zimbabwean Mass Media
Trust (ZMMT), a Trust created by the government after independence.

Following the restriction
on the electronic airwaves, it is evident that the government’s monopoly is
triumphing. The Zimbabwean Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) runs both the radio and
television channels, with the Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) as the
main. Given the polarization of the country, the extent to which the various
outlets apply ethical considerations remain a course for concern. Drawing from
the Potter’s Box of ethical considerations (Christians, Fackler and Rotzoll: 1994), it is evident that whether journalistic
principles and values are compromised or not, the loyalty of the public
broadcaster would be paid to the state. State-owned media are said to be
generally propaganda machines, serving as the
mouthpiece of the government; they preach patriotism and anti-colonialism;
celebrate the invasion of white-owned farmlands. Their coverage, if at all, of
the MDC Party, its leaders and activities is largely biased and skewed, with
little or no reports on arrests, detentions or deportations.

International media from
within the Southern African sub-region, notably in South Africa and the West,
have mostly also fallen into the “for-” or “against-” camps. Major media
outlets that focus on covering Zimbabwe are mostly South African-based media:
they include the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), eTV, M-Net,
numerous radio stations and newspapers. Their coverage as well sometimes comes
across as pro-white, pro-MDC, anti-Mugabe or pro-Black and for Mugabe. There
has also been some coverage on the African continent by the major News Agencies
such as Panapress and other outlets such as All Africa.

Beyond the continent,
international media coverage has been championed by the BBC. Ordinarily, BBC’s
coverage on the African continent is quite extensive. That notwithstanding,
there is an extra bias, given Britain’s colonial ties with Zimbabwe. For this reason, providing fair, balance, objective and impartial coverage of the crisis
has been immensely challenging. BBC is said to focus on white farmers,
glorifying the MDC, whilst framing and anglinga demonised Mugabe and his government. Other Western media
coverage has been provided by Voice of America (VOA), Radio Dutchwelle (RDW), Cable News Network (CNN), Fox News and the
Norwegian Press.

The international media
have more or less reduced the issues in the crisis to one of “black versus
white.” A study entitled, “The African
Paradigm: The Coverage of Zimbabwean Crisis in Norwegian Media”, shows that the
media gave much consideration to white farmers, presenting the Zimbabwean
crisis in racial spectrum and concluded that, “the Norwegian media reduced the
complex Zimbabwean issue into a ‘typical’ African story of tragedy and
despair.” (Ndlela: 2005). Beyond the broader framework, some selected cases highlighted
better exemplify the ethical challenges of covering the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Illuminating Cases of Ethical
Transgressions

Recently, a case of alleged
adultery was reported involving Archbishop Pius Ncube, of the Bulawayo Archdiocese, an ardent critique of the Zimbabwean government. The
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), The Chronicle and The Herald, all
pro-State media reported and broadcast what would be footage of the Archbishop
and the female suspect, a staff of one the archdioceses of the Catholic’s. They
were supposedly caught on-camera,
and the incident was widely reported, especially by the aforementioned media
outlets. It was reported that the female suspect’s husband had hired a private
investigator to plant cameras in the bedroom of the Archbishop. He had
suspected his wife of having an affair with the Archbishop. With the purported
evidence he took the matter to the courts.

A number of issues could
be raised. The Archbishop being a public figure, especially the head of a
leading moral institution like the Catholic Church naturally attracts a lot
media attention. He is assumed to have a high level of morality, especially
following his oath of celibacy. An incident of this magnitude would naturally
attract public attention, and of course, the media. However, this is not the
focus of this illustration. Rather, the focus is on the media coverage of the
supposed incident, both from the perspective of the content and framing of the
story. It also bridges the Zimbabwe Journalists Code of conduct and the law
which prohibits the reporting of a case that is still pending in the courts.
Reporting the court proceedings being different thing altogether.

The three media organs
that gave wide coverage to the alleged adultery story, could argue in favour of
publishing the story in respect of the principles of the freedom to access,
collect and disseminate information, and also the public’s right to know.
Balancing these principles with moral values, especially within a crisis and
polarized environment remains another challenge. The fact that graphic images
of the reported incident were broadcast is in itself a bridge of ethical
values. A strong remark from the Chairperson of a media-watchdog, MISA-Zimbabwe,
noted that, “the showing of graphic pictures of the alleged moments of
intimacy of parties allegedly involved in this matter smack off an agenda far
beyond normal journalistic reporting.”

It will be interesting
as well to know how the media accessed the supposed video recording, and the
credibility of the information. There could be a possibility of the information
having being “planted” in order to “get” the Archbishop, who, had all along
been the “pious one”, while he painted Mugabe the devil with all his
criticisms. “The pictures which the state media claims prove the case
against Archbishop Ncube are not only disrespectful of the legal processes
underway but show a hidden agenda to tarnish the respected reputation and image
of the Archbishop once and for all.” The MISA chairperson noted.

“Media practitioners may probe
and publish details about the private moral behaviour of a
public official where this conduct has a bearing upon his or her suitability as
a public official.” Clearly stipulates the
respect of right to privacy in Article
14 of the Code of Conduct of the Zimbabwean
Media Practitioners. To some extent, the pro-Government media may be argue, was
the base of publishing the story. However, in Article 13a) of the same Code of
Conduct, the Zimbabwean Law is quoted as stating that, “…a person is
presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Trial of cases
by the media is not allowed; the media must therefore refrain from publishing
articles prejudging the outcome in criminal cases or seeking to influence the
outcome of the cases.” This is a clear violation of that provision of the
law. It will be interesting to see how the law is going to be applied in this
case involving the pro-Government media, as it was or would have been applied
to the private media.

At an earlier date Zimbabwe’s main independent newspaper, The Daily News had fallen prey to a legal dragnet,
shortly after the passing of the AIPPA in 2002. The Daily News published a story
alleging, “That paramilitary supporters of Mr. Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF Party
had murdered and beheaded a woman in a rural area for supporting the
opposition.” It was later found out that the story was not true. The story was withdrawn as being unsubstantiated and an
apology was issued. However, the government proceeded to arrest three
journalists; Lloyd Mudiwa and Collin Chiwanza
from The Daily News and Andrew Meldrum, a correspondent for The Guardian.
Andrew Meldrum, a US citizen who had been living in Zimbabwe for 21 years. They
were later on acquitted.

Principles of journalism require
fairness, objectivity, impartiality and balance in any story. Strictly adhering
to these principles will provide the public with ample information to make
judgments. Providing the different sides of a story not only satisfies these principles
of journalism, but equally provides an opportunity to apply Aristotle’s Golden
Mean, that is, providing two extremes for an appropriate centre point to be
determined. Anything short of this is a bridge of, not only professionalism,
but poses an ethical challenge. The lack of proper investigation to establish
the facts of the story led to the false publication.

However, in the case of the false
story, the newspaper retracted the story and acknowledged that the facts were
not substantiated. These are means and procedures available within media
institutions to correct and deal with such cases. Complaints procedures exist
in media organizations, while there also civil defamation provisions in the
country as a whole. Ignoring these and attempting to apply the AIPPA that had
just been enacted was seen as a way of targeting private journalists and
punishing them in ways that would deter others from any critical reporting.

Conclusion

Politicians and media practitioners
always harbour strange relationships. They almost always are at each
others throat, yet they very much need each order. By virtue of the way society
is organised, politicians have the upper hand in designing the rules of
the game, and can squeeze and suppress the media whenever an opportunity
presents itself. However, the media as well have the capacity to bring the
politicians to the lowest level with the power of information. Operating within
the socio-political context as in Zimbabwe, where the government wants to
maintain the status quo, poses an enormous challenge. It even becomes more
challenging when the media have to maintain high level of professionalism and
ethical standards in such polarized conflict environment. It is a battle that
the media must continuously fight, with courage and resilience.

Ndlela,
Nkosi, 2005. The African Paradigm: The Coverage of the Zimbabwean Crisis in the
Norwegian Media, University College of Hedmark, Norway (http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/pdf/zim_art5.pdf
(accessed November 2007)

Jacob Enoh-Eben is an MA student in Media, Peace and Conflict Studies at the UN-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica. He holds a BSc. in Journalism and Mass Communication obtained in 1996, at the University of Buea, Republic of Cameroon, and has an 11-year work experience in the fields of Peacebuilding, Conflict Prevention, Early Warning and Journalism and Mass Communication. Prior to UPEACE, he was a Senior Project Officer at the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), University of Cape Town, in South Africa. Before joining CCR in 2006, he worked for the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), where he was, at different times Coordinator of the Peace Monitoring Centre (the Situation Room) and earlier on Program Coordinator for Capacity Building for Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Good Governance, facilitating coordination and collaboration between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Civil Society Organisations.